UAF in the news: week of June 11, 2007

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
06/15/07

The high road: Alaska researchers map marijuana to its source
Anchorage Press and multiple media outlets statewide
The B.C. bud came across the border to Alaska hidden under wooden boards covering the frame of a long flatbed trailer, the kind you might use to haul around some heavy equipment ."¬"¬One big bust in April of 2006 by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration filled up about 10 large cardboard boxes with 308 pounds of British Columbia pot. Subsequent arrests ended six years of smuggling for the drug ring, but not before they transported roughly 2,200 pounds of marijuana worth $10 million, law enforcement officials estimate. Read more ...

The Arctic’s shrinking ice shelf
National Geographic online
The extent of ice covering the Arctic Ocean in summer has diminished significantly in the past 25 years. As global warming trends continue, forecasters believe the ice will keep shrinking. See more ...

UAF building named for provost
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
The University of Alaska Fairbanks on Thursday named the Natural Sciences Facility after retiring provost Paul Reichardt.
Read more ...

Video reveals ’sprite’ lightning secrets
LiveScience and other online publications
Sprites dance high above thunderstorms, but they’re not furtive mythical creatures. They’re quick bursts of electricity that have left atmospheric scientists in the dark about their origins. Read more ...

Sounds of Alaska in UAF museum
KTUU
FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- There’s a small room upstairs in the Museum of the North in Fairbanks where you can hear all the beauty Alaska has to offer. This unique room is known as "The Place Where You Go to Listen" and it may be the only place like it in the world. Read more ...

Ground broken for virology lab
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Juneau Empire
Imagine a horrible disease raging through Alaska. Officials are baffled as animals begin dying. Is it some new disease or a virus long thought eradicated but resurrected in a terrorist cell? The nightmare escalates when the disease makes the leap to humans, moving the public toward panic. State scientists work feverishly to find out what’s going on. Read more ...

Woolly mammoths done in by climate
Alaska Report and Far North Science
It’s the ice-age icon - the multi-ton, tusk-swinging woolly mammoth - an intelligent hair-covered beastie that roamed a prehistoric steppe that stretched from Europe across Siberia to Alaska. Read more ...

Showcasing UAF
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
During the dark, cold winter months, workers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Poker Flat Research Range are busy working with scientists launching rockets into the atmosphere to study the aurora borealis. The sounding rockets pierce the winter sky, leaving fiery trails across the dark and carrying scientific equipment in an effort to understand the dancing northern lights. Read more ...

Museum curators to meet
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Four Alaskan museum curators and library directors will be traveling to Washington, D.C., later this month to meet with other experts working to preserve deteriorating museum collections. Read more ...

What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic
SITNews
"¬Ira Flatow, host of National Public Radio’s "Science Friday," sat on a stage at the University of Alaska Fairbanks recently and listened to Alaska scientists talk about thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and sea ice, and shrubs that are replacing tundra plants in the Arctic. Read more ...

Farms’ potato hopes mashed
Anchorage Daily News
WASILLA - Point MacKenzie farmer Keith Moore hoped to ship up to 40,000 pounds of his Alaska red eye potatoes to Yunnan province in China this year. But a cut in state funding to a University of Alaska Fairbanks lab that tests the plants for diseases - a requirement for exporting - has left him without a market for his spuds. Read more ...